New to the community - Hello!

Hello fellow free thinkers! I'm new to the Atheist Nexus community and wanted to introduce myself. My name is Kevin and I'm from Boston, USA. I've been an atheist since I was about 15 and out to all my friends, but have waited till now to come out to my family. It was tough seeing as how I was raised in a heavily Irish Catholic family with a very devout mother. It was a very strange and difficult conversation to have. It's one thing to have arguments for the crazies you meet on the streets of the city and another to use those attacks on your own mother.

As far as my atheism goes, I'm of the proselytizing type. If someone wants to engage me in a discussion on religion with an open mind I will preach. But I also have many friends that are very religious, and we just never discuss the subject. Only the Bruins and pizza.

Welcome to the insane asylum! Seriously, we have some pretty awesome discussions and occasionally, some pretty heated disagreements. However, the one thing all of us seem to have in common is reality, and how to deal with it, fit into, and be a moral and decent person in light of the fact that there is no invisible magic man pulling our strings. There are some really great people on here from whom, at 60 years of a misspent youth, I can still learn from. Welcome, and dive on in. The water's great.

~Pat

P.S. Former Irish Catholic here, who did the official excommunication from the Church. And, I have the papers to prove it.